The Elusive Promise of Indigenous Development

by Engle, Karen

• ISBN13: 9780822347699
• ISBN10: 0822347695
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-08-27
• Publisher: Duke Univ Pr

Summary

Around the world, indigenous peoples use international law to make claims for heritage, territory, and economic development. Karen Engle traces the history of these claims, considering the prevalence of particular legal frameworks and their costs and benefits for indigenous groups. Her vivid account highlights the dilemmas that accompany each legal strategy, as well as the persistent elusiveness of economic development for indigenous peoples. Focusing primarily on the Americas, Engle describes how cultural rights emerged over self-determination as the dominant framework for indigenous advocacy in the late twentieth century, bringing unfortunate, if unintended, consequences.Conceiving indigenous rights as cultural rights, Engle argues, has largely displaced or deferred many of the economic and political issues that initially motivated much indigenous advocacy. She contends that by asserting static, essentialized notions of indigenous culture, indigenous rights advocates have often made concessions that threaten to exclude many claimants, force others into norms of cultural cohesion, and limit indigenous economic, political, and territorial autonomy.Engle explores one use of the right to culture outside the context of indigenous rights, through a discussion of a 1993 Colombian law granting collective land title to certain Afro-descendant communities. Following the aspirations for and disappointments in this law, Engle cautions advocates for marginalized communities against learning the wrong lessons from the recent struggles of indigenous peoples at the international level.

Author Biography

Karen Engle is the Cecil D. Redford Professor in Law and the Director of the Rapoport Center for Human Rights and Justice at the University of Texas School of Law.

Table of Contents

Table of Cases	p. ix
Acknowledgments	p. xi
List of Acronyms and Abbreviations	p. xv
Introduction	p. 1
International and Transnational Indigenous Movements
Setting the Stage for Transnational Indigenous Rights Movements: Domestic and International Law and Politics	p. 17
Indigenous Movements in the Americas in the 1970s: The Fourth World Movement and Panindianismo	p. 46
International Institutions and Indigenous Advocacy since 1980: Self-Determination Claims	p. 67
International Institutions and Indigenous Advocacy since 1990: Human Right to Culture Claims	p. 100
Human Rights and The Uses of Culture in Indigenous Rights Advocacy
Culture as Heritage	p. 141
Culture as Grounded in Land	p. 162
Culture as Development	p. 183
Indigenous Models in Other Contexts: The Case of Afro-Colombians
The History of Law 70: Culture as Heritage, Land, and Development	p. 223
The Periphery of Law 70: Afro-Colombians in the Caribbean	p. 254
Conclusion	p. 274
Notes	p. 279
Bibliography	p. 349
Index	p. 383
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